Reviews

Platero & Yo

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19 August 2012

Nowhere before curtain-up is it hinted that this early-morning show will be delivered solely in Spanish. I don’t speak a word, which was off-putting to begin with, but ultimately it didn’t really seem to matter very much.

This enduringly colourful show follows the touching life-cycle of a man and his donkey through a series of montages. It carries heavy hints of the drama school exercise, which is appropriate as this Puerto Rican company hail from a university drama department. But the carnivalesque enthusiasm with which each sketch, element and animal is rendered, through a combination of bodies and impressive bespoke props fills out a format with an in-built potential for dullness.

I don’t think there is much of a narrative to be had which can’t be inferred from the action onstage and, judging from the scraps of translation on the programme sheets handed out, perhaps it was better tha t I couldn’t follow the script word-for-word.

It doesn’t break any boundaries (I quite like mine left intact until midday), but it is good fun. There are much worse ways to pass time in Edinburgh than watching pretty things happen on a stage and letting something mellifluous and Spanish wash over you.